• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to examine North Korean defector students' characteristics in science learning through their voice in an "Angbuilgu" program, one of the Korean traditional science knowledge (TSK). We compared them with two other groups of contrasting backgrounds. The Angbuilgu program contains meaningful questions of time, everyday-life knowledge, Korean TSK, and western modern science (WMS). The teaching strategy consists of interactions between teacher and students, and scientific experiments. We applied this program to three groups and analyzed: North Korean defector students, elementary science gifted students, high school students in an advanced class. The characteristics of their science learning show the following: First, their interpretation of time as nature itself in their everyday life. They have rich experience and are familiar with time in nature. Second, they prefer science with complementary, caring, and humanist perspectives, which is in contrast to other groups with preference to the updated and practical science. Third, they lack scientific concepts but possess an abundance of everyday-life knowledge. Their linguistic expressions are ordinary rather than scientific. Fourth, they are familiar with narrative thinking more than scientific thinking. The results show that the science program using Korean TSK can help them accept new scientific knowledge as well as cultural pride, which plays a role in reconfirming their identity as one ethnicity. We expect that the contents of Korean TSK can be an intercultural field between North Korean defector students and our science curriculum.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.85-94
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• 2015

Constructivism gave many implications to science education but at the same time it has brought confusion about its implication to the field of science education. Hermeneutics has possibilities of being able to reduce confusion as well as opening a new horizon. Hermeneutics seeks the meaning of 'real understanding' through the concepts of horizon, hermeneutical circle, and fusion of horizons. Both hermeneutics and constructivism have positive attitude to students' pre-understanding and accept contextualization of knowledge. Thus, they both can criticize traditional teaching method and propose an alternative. Moreover, hermeneutics approaches human understanding holistically with the concept of horizon, and pays attention to the circularity of the process of human understanding. As a result, hermeneutics can open a new horizon and give new discourse to science education and contribute to the development of research and practice of science education.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.64 no.1
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• pp.19-29
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• 2020

We analyzed the representations of acid-base models in 4 kinds of Chemistry I and 4 kinds of Chemistry II textbooks of the 2009 revised curriculum, and 9 kinds of Chemistry I textbooks and 6 kinds of chemistry II textbooks of the 2015 revised curriculum in this study. The problems of the textbook were divided into the problems of definitions and the representations of the logical thinking. As a result of the study, the lack of the concept of chemical equilibrium had a problem with the representation of reversible reactions in the definition of the Brønsted-Lowry model in the Chemistry I textbooks of 2009 revised curriculum, it also appeared to persist in Chemistry I textbooks of 2015 revised curriculum which contains the concept of chemical equilibrium. The representations of logical thinking were related to particle kinds of conservation logic, combinational logic, particle number conservation logic, and proportion logic. There were few problems related to representation of logical thinking in Chemistry I textbook in 2009 revision curriculum, but more problems of representations related to logics are presented in Chemistry I textbooks in 2015 revision curriculum. Therefore, as the curriculum is revised, the representations of chemistry textbooks related to acid and base models need to be changed in a way that can help students' understanding.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.62 no.4
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• pp.279-287
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• 2018

In this study, we analyzed the explanations and examples of Brønsted-Lowry model in Chemistry I and Chemistry II textbooks of the 2009 revised curriculum. In particular, the definition of the Brønsted-Lowry model, the examples, and the content of experiments were analyzed by the process perspective of chemical equilibrium, emergent process. The analyzed textbooks were 4 kinds of Chemistry I textbooks and 4 kinds of Chemistry II textbooks in 2009 revision curriculum. As a result, Chemical I textbooks did not adequately show the chemical equilibrium viewpoint when explaining the Brønsted-Lowry model. In the Chemistry II textbooks, the examples of Brønsted-Lowry model were not present emergent process viewpoint, and those were described as sequential viewpoint of Arrhenius model. In addition, examples of experiments to demonstrate the Brønsted-Lowry model of Chemistry II textbooks were insufficient. The experimental examples related to the definition of acid bases were at the level of classification by the color change of indicators. The experimental examples for explaining the strength of acid and base were to compare current intensity or amount of hydrogen gas generated from the reaction with metal. In addition, all textbooks presented the state of aqueous solution when describing the Brønsted-Lowry model, causing problems with differentiation from the Arrhenius model. Therefore, it is necessary to develop examples of experiments to help students understand Brønsted-Lowry model by presenting acid and base reaction in the non-aqueous solution state.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.276-291
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• 2016

This study is to develop a valid and reliable instrument for measuring students' creative engineering problem solving propensity. The creative engineering problem solving is operationally defined in this study as a creative problem solving skill in an engineering context. To develop the instrument, first we define seven common constructs between engineering problem solving skill and creative problem solving skill through an intensive literature review; motivation, context, personal character, engineering design, engienering habits of mind, understandings of engineering and engineers, communication skill, and collaboration skill. Based on the seven constructs and the face validity test conducted by two in-service science teachers and 4 experts in science education research, 40 preliminary items were developed. Then the preliminary instrument was implemented in a science gifted highschool to measure the reliability of the instrument. From the 40 items, 34 items were selected through the initial reliability test by Cronbach's ${\alpha}$(>.75). Finally through the three times of factor analysis process, 28 items in five construct categories were selected; motivation (3 items), engineering design (6 items), engineering habits of mind (9 items), understandings of engineering and engineers (4 items), communication and collaboration skill (6 items). The factor analysis result showed that the reliability of each construct category was between .733 to .892., meaning that the instrument is reliable in terms of the higher structural validity (each item is categorized in an appropriate construct category). We expect that the creative engineering problem solving propensity instrument developed in this study can be used in various contexts for STEAM education research as a reliable and valid instrument.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.212-224
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• 2007

Metabolism is one of the pivotal biology concepts, but many students have difficulty understanding it. The purposes of this study were (1) to explore 8th graders' conceptual change of an enzyme after classes of experimenting enzyme reaction and interpreting data using systematic analogies, (2) to discover the role of systematic analogies to enhance students' understanding, and (3) to explain students' difficulty understanding concepts as the ontological features. Systematic analogies were designed to encourage students to interpret their lab activities on enzyme reaction rates. Data were collected by using the pre-test and the post-test of open-ended form, students' worksheets, and interviews with students. After classes, the number of students to engender scientific conceptions about the function of enzyme, its structure, and its mechanism has increased. But more students failed to understand the reaction mechanisms having ontological features of equilibration processes than to understand the function of enzyme having ontological features of event-like processes. Even though the concepts of enzymes are hard to grasp owing to their ontological attributes of equilibration processes, a part of students' conceptions successfully progressed from the idea belonging to event-like processes to one belonging to equilibration processes. And systematic analogies were found to contribute in enhancing students' conceptual change of the enzyme reaction.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.511-523
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• 2019

In this age of the $4^{th}$ industrial revolution, we, science educators, are giving more light on students' agentic behavior in the process of educating future scientist. This study, with the analytic lens of epistemic agency, explores the key stages of a student-driven R&E program rather than the scientist-led R&E program. It also examines to understand the emergence of students' epistemic agency in each stage of R&E. Data from participant observation for 18 months and in-depth interviews were collected and analyzed with the constant comparative method of grounded theory. This study identifies and describes five key stages of student-driven R&E: The stage of exploring research theme, designing research, performing lab activity, interpreting results, and communicating research. It also finds that (a) students' epistemic agency emerged with the constant interactions with the R&E structure; (b) students' epistemic agency has deep relations with the epistemic beliefs of the students; (c) students positioned themselves as decision-makers in the R&E practice; (d) the redistributed power and authority of the R&E contributed to the emergence of students' epistemic agency.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.129-158
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• 2020

In this study, we presented two geometric tasks to three 11th grade students to identify the characteristics of the images that the students had at the beginning of problem-solving in the problem situations and investigated how their images changed during problem-solving and effected their problem-solving behaviors. In the first task, student A had a static image (type 1) at the beginning of his problem-solving process, but later developed into a dynamic image of type 3 and recognized the invariant relationship between the quantities in the problem situation. Student B and student C were observed as type 3 students throughout their problem-solving process. No differences were found in student B's and student C's images of the problem context in the first task, but apparent differences appeared in the second task. In the second task, both student B and student C demonstrated a dynamic image of the problem context. However, student B did not recognize the invariant relationship between the related quantities. In contrast, student C constructed a robust quantitative structure, which seemed to support him to perceive the invariant relationship. The results of this study also show that the success of solving the task 1 was determined by whether the students had reached the level of theoretical generalization with a dynamic image of the related quantities in the problem situation. In the case of task 2, the level of covariational reasoning with the two varying quantities in the problem situation was brought forth differences between the two students.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.301-311
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• 2017

In this study, we observed the characteristics of students' small group discussions concerning the four friction problems. Participants in this study were 22 students of upper-level mechanics course and their small group discussions have been transcribed. As a result, we found that the phenomenon in this study is well defined by 'common context.' The process of formation of the common context was explicitly observed when students discussed about the identification of the problem situation (especially the movement of A in the second problem), the nature of friction and various forces, inertial frame, and noninertial reference frame. Meanwhile, the formation of common context was tacit when students thought they already had a common context. For example, students did not discuss about the friction rule itself because they had confidence about the knowledge. We also found that the presence of the questioner, receiver, and the other opinion were important for positive group discussions. The result of this study would be meaningful because it analyzed how the theme affects the group discussion beyond the limit of previous studies of just analyzing the form or pattern of discourse.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.188-194
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• 2005

To assess microbiological indoor air quality in schools, concentrations of viable airborne microorganisms were monitored at classrooms and corridors of 3 middle or high schools in Ulsan. Airborne microorganisms were sampled at various situations during a semester (class-hour, lunchtime, after school) and during a vacation with an impaction-type air sampler. During the semester, the number of bacteria was the highest at lunchtime in corridor with an average of $1,111\;MPN/m^{3}$ and lowest at class-hour in corridor with an average of $132\;MPN/m^{3}$. During the vacation, the bacterial concentrations at classrooms and corridors were only $5{\%}$ and $27{\%}$ of the values during class-hours of the semester, respectively. Among the colonies tested, $60{\%}$ were identified as relatively harmless Micrococcus species and $12{\%}$ were Staphylococcus species. During the semester, the average values of fungal concentrations at each situation ranged from 105 to $213\;MPN/m^{3}$, and the values during the vacation were $32\;MPN/m^{3}$ at classrooms and $83\;MPN/m^{3}$ in corridors. Fungal genera such as Cladosporium, Penicillium, and Aspergillus were identified from the colonies. The obtained data can be considered as a step to set a guideline for bioaerosols in indoor environment of schools.